Tolerance: Sometimes zero is the right degree

A continuing debate between liberals and conservatives centers on crime and
punishment. Right-thinkers generally prefer being tough on criminals, even
against liberals' justified caution that incarcerating miscreants can harm
their innocent families, because we care about the happiness and safety of
communities.

Last Friday, I was reminded of my fondness for toughness when the driver of
a large pickup zoomed through crowded 60-70 mph freeway traffic at close to
90. A huge traffic fine - which, of course, might well take food out of the
mouths of his children - is utterly inadequate. The law should permit
forfeiture of these vehicles-cum-missiles being demolition-derbied at, say,
20-plus mph over the speed limit or being operated by drunken drivers.

And I have reason to think that some of our brightest left-leaners are
becoming right-thinkers about such matters. The March 26 Supreme Court
decision in the case of Department of Housing and Urban Development vs.
Rucker supports my contention.

Congress decreed that each "public housing agency shall utilize leases
which ... provide that any criminal activity that threatens the health,
safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants or
any drug-related criminal activity on or off such premises, engaged in by a
public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household, or any other
person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy."

Long-time residents of HUD-owned housing were given eviction notices
because, in one case, a tenant's live-in daughter was found with cocaine
three blocks from her apartment. In another case, a 30-year tenant was
asked to move because her grandson admitted smoking marijuana in the
parking lot.

Such actions seem draconian. After all, how could the one tenant control
her daughter's drug use from a distance of three blocks? How can a
grandmother possibly control her headstrong grandson outside her home?
Isn't this zero-tolerance approach to law a textbook invitation for
judicial liberals to attack HUD on civil liberties grounds?

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals thought that the evictions probably
violated due process of law. Regardless, that court decided, the law itself
bars eviction when the tenant, "for a lack of knowledge or other reason,
could not realistically exercise control over the conduct of a household
member or guest."

Wrong, wrote the unanimous Supremes, whose liberal and conservative wings
are closely balanced. The 9th Circuit's interpretation of the law "runs
counter to basic rules of grammar." Besides, wrote Chief Justice William
Rehnquist, Congress could have been less harsh (as it has been in some
forfeiture legislation) and chose not to be.

Moreover, the statute does not require eviction, leaving that decision up
to the local housing agency authorities. Thus, the court ruled that
Congress gave "local housing authorities the discretion to terminate the
lease of a tenant when a member of the household or a guest engages in
drug-related activity, regardless of whether the tenant knows, or should
have known, of the drug-related activity."

Many professional "advocates for the poor" abhor this decision. But "many
poor people in crime-ridden housing projects," as reported in The New York
Times, support such zero-tolerance policies.

The Supreme Court's liberals do occasionally join conservatives in seeing
the right light.

Don Erler is president of General Building Maintenance.